I had this crazy dream where I thought I’d be able to keep track of which software was Universal (native for Intel Macs) and which was not. Boy, was I wrong. What’s made it especially difficult is that lots of tiny developers have been making rapid progress on Intel-native Mac releases, often without releasing press […]
Music
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Mactel Watch: MicroTonic Beatbox Now Universal (Mac/Win)
CDM reader subbasshead points on our forums to a newly Intel-native release of Sonic Charge’s MicroTonic beatbox app. Sonic Charge downloads Product page, up close and personal with UI Why do we like this app so much? Its elegant interface is the creation of Magnus Lidström, who contributed to Propellerhead Reason, including the Malström synth […]
Kids Using High-Pitched Ringtones Inaudible to Adults (What About You?)
In case you haven’t seen it yet, The New York Times reports today that New York-area schoolkids have resorted to an unusual solution to cellphone bans. Apparently unaware of phones’ vibrate mode, the students have opted for an incredibly annoying ringtone pitched at 17,000 Hz. Theoretically, “adults” shouldn’t be able to hear that. (The real […]
Hearing Like Humans Do: New Sonic Analysis Methods Clear Through Noise, Promise Better Music Software
Hearing over the din of noise is something that humans do a lot better than computers. A new mathematical technique promises to provide highly accurate models of sound, even with broadband noise in the picture. Why does this matter, aside from mathematical curiosity? For one, better sonic analysis could mean more realistic models of instruments […]
Composer Gyoergy Ligeti Has Died
Hungarian composer György Ligeti died in Vienna today. (See Bloomberg.com obituary, Jam obituary, Wikipedia entry with many links.) I can think of few composers who have been as inspiring and imaginative in their sound world as Maestro Ligeti. While he largely shunned electronic music production, his music for choir and orchestra challenges electronic and acoustic […]
Cakewalk Now on MySpace
Cakewalk has launched a Cakewalk-only MySpace page for their users. It’s a blend of commercial endeavor and community site. On the commercial side, there’s a fair amount of advertising of Cakewalk products and the Cakewalk tour. That to me is overkill, since usually the most passionate advertising comes from your users. But there are some […]
Use Quake III to “Play” Pd, Max/MSP Synthesis Environments
Gaming environments like Quake and Unreal have become easy interactive 3D development environments. Modify the game maps and objects, and you can make the visual realm in these games whatever you want. But for digital musicians imagining a 3D environment for creating music and sound, they’re limited. Enter the latest project from fijuu2 creator Julian […]
MIDI-Capable Guitars with Optical Pickups
After all that fuss with USB and FireWire guitars carrying audio, what a lot of guitarists want to be able to do is just to plug their guitar into MIDI so they can trigger soft synths without a keyboard. Aside from instruments like the Brian Moore iGuitar, as of last week you have a new […]
Preview: Building a Custom Mobile PC for Live Music and Visuals
We’ve covered rack rigs for rack-mounting PCs, Power Macs, and even Mac minis for the stage for a while. Now, I’m going to go an extra step, and actually build a machine step-by-step here on CDM. But instead of making a rack-mountable machine, I wanted something even more portable. I want a desktop-class PC I […]